Today In History: The Zong Massacre
November 29th: Today in 1781 slave ship captain Luke Collingwood of the Zong made the decision to throw his human cargo overboard in an effort collect the insurance on the ‘cargo’. This horrific murder was exposed, the claim denied and the publicity helped bring the public attention to the brutality of the slave trade and spur on the abolition movement in England. It is hard to believe that the cold blooded murder of over 130 people was viewed as simple insurance fraud at the time but at least the attention it brought from the public helped end the savage trade.
November 29th, 2006 at 4:23 am
For the next 3 days, they threw the 133 (with one survivor) people overboard. To their death…
Okay, now I know slavery was a long standing tradition, even before there was an organized slave trade there were traders who took people from one land and sold them to people in another land. The Vikings were slavers, as were the Romans and many others, right? And throwing people overboard didn’t start with the Zong either… but this story is still just plain sick. The captain and the crew together murdered 132 people over 3 days. On purpose. To make sure investors didn’t lose money on the slaves. And, aside from the investors losing money once the insurance company got wise, they got away with it. And it would still be well over a century before slavery was outlawed (at least in the states)?
Have I mentioned how happy I am to be living now? I know there is still slavery in the world, but at least it isn’t accepted as a ‘natural order’ anymore.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Yeah, people who are nostalgic for the old days tend to gloss over a lot of the crap that went with the old days. To say nothing of disease (coupled with a lack of modern medicines), oppression, etc. I’m not saying there aren’t individual things we can learn and emulate in past ages, but let’s be realistic - and leave me my air conditioning, airline travel and computers!